– Just sit up there.
– Here?
– Nah, go up, like, another branch … yeah, and another one … another –
– It’s high
– Yeah.
– I could – I could fall.
– Yeah.
– It’d hurt.
Pause– You should look scared.
– I’m not.
– You need to look it but.
– OK. Like this?
– That’s good.
– Now what?
– Dunno.
They wait.Weekly Writing Challenge - Fifty
I have always had a slight obsession with France; for as long as I can remember it has always been “My Favourite Country” and when I was about 11 years old I constantly wore a beret because I desperately wanted to be French and I had an impressive collection of Eiffel Towers and did countless school projects on the place and would sometimes speak in this pretty terrible French accent and , well, you get the idea … So, when modalalien offered to translate my short story Temporary into French I was, clearly, very excited. Here it is, the French version of Temporary (with much better sounding title of Juste en attendant) as translated by Damien Allo (thank you so very much for this Damien):
Nouvelle
Par Katy Warner
Traduit de l’anglais (Australie) par Damien E. Allo
« Je te paierai pas. Tu sers à rien. Rentre chez toi », dit Charlie en aboyant, sa chemise blanche arborant déjà fièrement de vilaines tâches de sueur.
« Je préfère rester là.
— Je te paye pas pour rester là. Comme je l’ai dit, t’es un foutu bon à rien. »
Sam voulu lui répondre mais ses paroles restèrent bloquées quelque part entre ses poumons et son larynx. Elles restèrent là, coincées dans sa poitrine tant et si bien que des larmes lui vinrent aux yeux. Avant qu’il n’ait pu s’en empêcher, l’une d’elles s’èchappa et roula triomphalement sur sa joue.
« Bon sang, mais-Rentre chez toi.» Comme il lui tendait un mouchoir, les vociférations de Charlie se firent un peu moins virulantes.
Sam dètestait son boulot. Il avait eu dans l’idèe de dèmissionner au moment même où il avait commencè. Mais elle lui avait dit que c’ètait juste en attendant, et elle le pensait vraiment. A l’époque. Bien súr qu’elle le pensait vraiment.
Les néons vacillèrent en grésillant. Il observa un papillon occupè à s’abrutir contre la protection en plastique du luminaire.
« Regardez-moi ce petit bonhomme », dit-il comme pour lui-même. Il fallait toujours qu’il fasse ça, se parler comme à lui-même. Ça la rendait folle, elle le lui avait dit en lui lançant un de ces regards qui voulait dire tu me mets mal à l’aise, on en reparlera une fois à la maison, et qu’il ne connaissait que trop bien.
Charlie, quant-à lui, se contenta de le regarder d’un air absent.
« Bon sang, mais rentre-» mais avant que Charlie ait terminé sa phrase -assez prévisible-, le ding-dong du carillon retentit au niveau des portes coulissantes.
Charlie se redressa sur sa chaise comme un petit animal sauvage.
Le carillon pouvait parfois être trompeur. Il avait tendance à être capricieux et cruel : il ravivait l’espoir du vendeur aux abois qui se voyait persuadè que c’ètait là la vente qu’il attendait, pour finalement se rendre compte que ce n’ètait que l’effet du vent. Sam se plaisait à imaginer que ce n’ètait pas le vent mais des fantômes qui ne s’ètaient pas encore rendu compte de leur mort et qui continuaient leur train-train habituel et se rendaient dans les magasins de meubles en se demandant pourquoi les vendeurs les ignoraient… Il s’en ètait confiè à Charlie qui l’avait regardè bizarrement puis lui avait dit qu’il fallait passer l’aspirateur. Sam passait son temps avec l’aspirateur : il avait davantage l’impression d’être employè au nettoyage qu’à la vente.
Le carillon continuait à faire ding-dong alors qu’un jeune couple un peu mal à l’aise se tenait à l’entrèe du magasin. Charlie rèajusta sa cravate, fourra un bonbon à la menthe dans sa bouche et saisit son bloc-notes. « Il n’y a rien d’inscrit dessus, mais ça vous donne l’air
important. Les clients sont sensibles à ce genre de choses. Tout ça fait partie de ma technique », lui avait confié Charlie le premier jour.
Charlie se leva et rentra sa chemise dans son pantalon : son ventre d’amateur de biére s’affirmait de plus en plus et s’accommodait mal des exigences d’une tenue de commercial. Son ventre imposant repoussait constamment sa chemise en dehors de son pantalon, forçait la boucle de sa ceinture et faisait sauter ses boutons. Il tenait pour responsables les fabricants de vêtements, le pressing ou sa femme, mais jamais la bière, la friture ou les généreuses quantités de beignets à la crème ou à la confiture qui accompagnaient sa pause café matinale. Sam gonflait parfois son ventre à la maison en la prévenant que, lui aussi, pourrait ressembler à ça un jour. Elle riait alors de cette façon bien à elle et lui disait qu’elle l’aimerait même s’il devenait trés gros et ajoutait que c’ètait un boulot juste en attendant, de toute façon, et qu’il ne ferait pas ça toute sa vie. Il ne lui avait rien dit, mais il avait remarqué que ses pantalons devenaient de plus en plus justes et que son visage avait pris des rondeurs. Chaque nuit, une fois qu’il pensait qu’elle s’ètait endormie, il faisait cinquante abdos sans faire de bruit.
Charlie s’empara de sa veste de costume sur le dossier de sa chaise et l’enfila en prenant son temps. Sam avait plaisir à observer les préparatifs de Charlie avant une vente. « Il faut pas donner l’impression d’être aux abois », voilà une autre perle de sagesse dont Charlie avait gentiment fait profiter Sam lors de son premier jour. Malheureusement, les clients devenaient une espèce de plus en plus rare au Merveilleux Magasin de Meubles de Charlie et la devise
“faut pas avoir l’air aux abois” revenait souvent à perdre des clients avant même d’avoir pu accrocher leur regard. Sam tenait les néons pour responsables, Charlie, lui, en voulait à la situation économique, à la concurrence, à lui-même.
On entendait toujours le ding-dong du carillon, tout heureux d’avoir l’occasion d’annoncer de vrais clients plutôt que ces fichus fantômes qui s’entêtaient à frèquenter les magasins de meubles au mépris de leur mort. Le jeune couple passa le magasin en revue tout en restant tranquillement sur le tapis d’accueil (Charlie disait que les clients sont réceptifs à ce genre de choses, cela rendait le magasin accueillant tout simplement parce que c’ètait ce qui ètait ècrit sur le tapis) et ils se parlèrent ensuite à voix basse. On aurait dit qu’ils prèparaient leur évasion.
« Il faut que je leur mette le grappin dessus. Ne… T’as qu’à… »
Il agitait les bras en vain tout en se prècipitant vers le couple, l’haleine rafraichie, le bloc-notes à la main et la chemise bien rentrée.
Sam savait ce que voulait dire l’agitation des bras : Ne t’approche pas des clients. Il avait pu voir ces bras s’agiter en de nombreuses occasions, particulièrement lors de son premier mois de présence durant lequel il avait été forcé de porter le badge humiliant “en formation” et de rire à gorge dèployèe à chaque fois qu’un client s’essayait à un mot d’esprit au sujet de son “badge d’identification”.
« Ca vient d’où ? », demandaient-ils avec un petit sourire narquois.
Je vous demande pardon ? répondait-il en faisant semblant de ne pas comprendre.
Votre nom, là. Ils montraient alors le badge en voulant souligner la drôlerie de leur blague. En formation. »
Ils prenaient alors toujours un accent terriblement moqueur – français, allemand ou autre – Monsieur Information, Herr Enformazion. Alors, il riait et ils se félicitaient de leur ingéniosité en continuant à “juste jeter un œil” avant de partir en lançant “à bientôt M. Formation”, mais sans canapé, ni table basse ou autre coussins à cinq dollars -ce qui était purement du vol¬mais, non merci, pas aujourd’hui… Il dètestait les clients. Il lui avait bien dit qu’il n’ètait pas fait pour le contact avec la clientéle et elle ètait partie de son rire en lui disant que c’ètait juste en attendant.
Il regardait Charlie essayer de convaincre le couple de quitter le tapis d’accueil et de faire un petit tour du magasin. Charlie leur servirait de guide. Il serait leur ami. Leur assistant. « Ne te présente jamais comme assistant des ventes » lui avait-il dit. « Ca repousse les gens ».
Le jeune couple avait l’air aussi paumé que le papillon qui continuait de se cogner contre le plafonnier. Sam se demanda si ils avaient eux aussi ètè attirès à l’intèrieur par les nèons.
Il se rappela avoir été dans des magasins pareils à celui-ci. Il se souvint combien il avait été déconcerté en se demandant pourquoi diable ils avaient besoin d’un nouveau canapè alors que celui qu’il avait rècupèrè auprés de la dèchetterie convenait parfaitement et donnait un bon exemple de réduction de notre empreinte carbone, de recyclage et d’action positive pour l’environnement car, aprés tout, c’ètait elle la soi-disant écolo, et comment pouvait-elle se plier au gâchis de l’occident, à cette aviditè capitaliste… Il soupira. Pourquoi ne pouvait-il se rappeler que des disputes ?
Sam regarda le couple alors qu’ils s’intèressaient au matelas 140. Ils avaient l’air de poupées dèmesurèes, allongès l’un à côtè de l’autre, chaussures aux pieds, les bras le long du corps, immobiles et sans porter d’attention à Charlie qui soulignait les vertus de la mousse, des ressorts, des coutures. Sam regarda la femme prendre la main de son compagnon. Sam regarda l’homme porter la main à ses lévres et l’embrasser. Sam la regarda prendre sa tête dans ses mains. Sam regarda Charlie, dans son embarras et par politesse, se tourner vers son bloc-notes et se racler la gorge. Sam observa cette scène de tendresse se poursuivre tandis que le papillon se cognait contre les nèons que l’on entendait grésiller au plafond. Sam regarda la femme dire à l’homme qu’on les regardait. Sam regarda la femme le montrer du doigt.
« Tu regardes quoi, là ? », lui hurla le jeune homme sur le matelas.
Sam se rappela comme elle était allongé de la sorte ; elle avait eu l’air d’une petite poupèe en porcelaine sur le matelas, les bras le long du corps, immobile et sans porter attention à quoi que ce soit. Il ne s’ètait pas attendu à ce que ça ait l’air, à ce qu’elle est l’air si irréelle. Allongès sur le dos, l’un à côtè de l’autre, les bras le long de son corps, il avait pris une de ses mains dèlicates dans la sienne et l’avait embrassèe, il avait pris sa tête dans ses mains, il avait prononcé son nom, il lui avait caressè les cheveux, il avait appelè l’infirmiére, il avait dit au-revoir. Il l’avait senti venir, même si elle avait insistè, à chaque ètape, que c’ètait juste en attendant : la chute des cheveux, les injections, les vomissements, les salles d’attente…
« Ho ! Abruti ! C’est quoi ton probléme ?»
Sam ne savait pas où aller, alors il était venu au boulot ; son boulot juste en attendant.
Le jeune homme se précipita sur Sam. La jeune femme ricana. Charlie agita les bras en vain. Sam continua à regarder en clignant des yeux et en respirant, et en écoutant le bruit sourd de ce pauvre papillon.
« Il ne lâche pas le morceau. Quel entêtement, petit bonhomme ! », dit-il, comme pour lui¬même.
Malheureusement, il y avait quelqu’un qui n’ètait pas lui-même et qui crut que Sam s’adressait à lui.
L’homme s’approcha de Sam, l’haleine chargée de relents de fast food et de boissons ènergisantes sucrèes. Sam regarda les lévres de l’homme qui, un instant auparavant, avaient embrassé la main de la jeune femme se retrousser soudainement et se déformer en un torrent d’insultes. La jeune femme apparu derrière l’èpaule de son compagnon et le tira en arriére. Sam regarda la main de la femme qui, un instant auparavant, tenait encore la tête du jeune homme se changer soudainement en doigt d’honneur.
Le ding-dong du carillon se fit entendre : ils étaient partis.
Charlie se trouvait sur le tapis d’accueil, agitant les bras en vain, en rythme avec le ding-dong.
« Bon sang, Sam, Bon… » Charlie remit le bloc-notes dans le tiroir, raccrocha sa veste de costume sur le dossier de sa chaise, sortit sa chemise de son pantalon et expira pour ce qui parut une éternité.
« Je sais, Je sais. Je vais… » Il pensa à retourner à la maison. Habituellement, lorsqu’il arrivait au parking du Merveilleux Magasin de Meubles de Charlie, tout ce à quoi il pensait, c’ètait de faire demi-tour et de rentrer à la maison.
Au-dessus de lui, le papillon s’èpuisait à virevolter autour de la lumiére.
Le boulot de Sam consistait aussi souvent à rèpandre de l’insecticide sur les papillons ou à leur porter un coup fatal à l’aide d’un journal roulè sur lui-même. Mais pas aujourd’hui. Charlie regarda Sam se mettre debout sur le bureau, tendre la main vers la lumière et recueillir le paillon dans ses mains avec soin. Il regarda Sam traverser le magasin en tenant le papillon captif entre ses mains. Il entendit le ding-dong du carillon au moment où Sam relâcha le papillon sur le parking.
Sam, silhouette esseulèe sur un tapis d’accueil, regarda le papillon s’envoler jusqu’à ce qu’il le perde de vue.
« Viens manger un beignet », lui lança Charlie.
Sam s’essuya les pieds sur le tapis et retourna à son boulot, juste en attendant.
Ruby didn’t want to be there. She had been promised a visit to the park. This place was the complete opposite of the park (she knew all about opposites and this was most definitely an opposite). It was dark and smelt weird and her new sneakers stuck to the dirty carpet. She was not happy and showed her dad this by staring at her sneakers. He didn’t seem to notice.
She loved her new sneakers. They were purple and lit up with sparkles of colour every time she took a step. She liked to imagine she was walking on stars. But her sneakers didn’t light up here – they just stuck stubbornly to the thin carpet. It made her sad. Her new sneakers were for running and sliding and jumping and most definitely not for sticking to dirty carpet.
He had been promising to take her to the park for ages now but there was always an excuse; he was busy or tired or it was raining or he had one of those headaches he always seemed to have. But today he didn’t have a headache and it wasn’t raining and he had said put on your new sneakers we’re going to the park. So she did. She was wearing her new sneakers but this was not the park.
He hadn’t kept his side of the bargain. Ruby knew all about bargains and so far she had done her bit but her dad was letting her down. Again. Like those times Jake would want to make a bargain with their lunches and she would end up swapping a chocolate chip cookie for an apple. Yes, Ruby knew all about unfair bargains.
She sighed.
She wasn’t going to lose out this time.
She pulled on his jacket but he didn’t look at her. She squeezed his hand so tightly it made her screw up her nose but he didn’t look at her. She jumped on his foot, her left sneaker lighting up like a Christmas tree, but he still didn’t look.
She took a deep breath and used a voice louder than any voice she had ever used before; “Let’s go!” She knew it must have been really loud because Mrs Peachy always scolded her for being too loud even when she whispering secrets to Jake in her quiet voice. She was terrible at keeping secrets and she was terrible at being quiet. “I don’t wanna be here,” she said in the loudest voice she had ever used. Ever.
Ruby’s father still didn’t look but the old man sitting behind a table full of empty glasses did. He stared. She pulled her hair over her face and peered at him through the fine curtain. He smiled at her, a toothless smile that made her stomach feel like it was full of angry, mean butterflies. She stuck her tongue out at him, even though she knew it was rude, and got a mouthful of hair. The old man laughed and belched at her as she hid her face in her dad’s jacket. But still he didn’t look.
He was looking at someone else.
Ruby removed herself from the jacket and tried to see what he was seeing. She followed his gaze to the other side of the room, to a table tucked in the corner behind which sat a woman with messy hair and dark eyes. She had her elbows on the table and one foot resting on the chair in front of her. Ruby frowned at the woman’s very bad manners (she knew all about manners and these were most definitely bad ones).
“Who’s that?” Ruby tried to use her quiet voice. It felt like the right time to be quiet.
Ruby looked at the woman at the table again and wondered whether she had put her dad under some spell. Maybe she was a witch. Maybe she had frozen him to the spot with her dark, magical eyes. Maybe she had stolen his voice box.
“Dad …” she was starting to worry that they may never make it to the park. It felt like they had been here for a long time.
“Go say hello.”
Finally, her dad was looking at her. She tried to smile at him but there was something about him, about his voice and his eyes, that didn’t seem quite right. She pulled her hair over her face.
“Don’t do that.” He gently pulled her hair back. “Go say hello.”
“To who?” She hit his hands away, he was always trying to make her hair neat and she hated it.
He pointed to the woman at the table with the bad manners. “We can go to the park after. OK?”
Ruby had never seen her dad look so small but right there, right in front of her, it looked as if he had lost all his air – like the last balloon at a birthday party, sad and unwanted. She was sure that woman was a witch. An air-stealing witch. She didn’t want to say hello to a witch but she didn’t want her dad to look so empty. It made those mean butterflies start doing laps in her stomach again.
She took a deep breath and let her sneakers take her on a sticky star walk across the galaxy to the witch at the table in the corner.
Melinda needed another drink. She got up from the table, steadied herself and took a step towards the bar. Suddenly, right under her feet was a little girl wearing sneakers that flashed like police lights. Melinda winced as the girl said something in a loud, high-pitched voice. She pushed past the little thing to get to the bar.
Ruby turned at looked at her dad and shrugged her shoulders. She told herself she was most definitely OK but somehow all those angry, mean butterflies escaped and burst from her eyes and her nose and her mouth and suddenly she was crying. Ruby never cried. Jake cried more than she did and he was boy and everyone knew boys weren’t supposed to cry so much. Ruby knew all about crying. She hated it but she couldn’t help it.
Melinda tried to ignore the scene in front of her and ordered a double. She gulped it down. It didn’t help. She ordered another.
Ruby watched her father refill with air and rush toward her. As he hugged her she felt butterflies disappear.
“I said hello,” she said. “Can we go to the park now?”
Ruby’s dad took her hand and walked on her stars out into the sunlight and towards the park and didn’t look back – even though Ruby was sure she heard someone call their names in a voice which was trying to be quiet.
“I’m not paying you. You’re useless. Go home,” Charlie barked, his white shirt already proudly displaying vicious sweat patches.
“I’d rather be here.”
“I’m not paying you to be here. Like I said, you’re bloody useless.”
Sam wanted to reply but the words got caught somewhere between his lungs and voice box and there they stayed, lodged in his chest, bringing tears to his eyes. Before he could stop it one escaped and rolled triumphantly down his cheek.
“Jesus Christ – go home,” Charlie’s bark was a little less biting as he handed him a tissue.
Sam hated his job. He had been planning to resign the very moment he started. But she had told him it was only temporary and she had meant it. Then. Of course she had meant it.
The fluorescent lights flickered and hummed. He watched a determined moth knock itself senseless against the plastic light fitting.
“Look at that little guy,” he said to no one in particular. He was always doing that; talking to no one in particular. It used to drive her insane, she had told him as much with that you’re-embarrassing-me-we’ll-discuss-this-when-we-get-home look he knew only too well.
Charlie, on the other hand, simply stared at him blankly.
“Jesus Christ, go –” but before Charlie could complete his somewhat predictable sentence the ding-dong customer alert chimed from the sliding doors.
Charlie sat up like a meerkat.
The ding-dong customer alert could be misleading at times. It had a tendency to be temperamental and cruel – raising the hopes of desperate salesman who felt sure this would be the sale they’d been waiting for only to learn it was just the wind. Sam liked to imagine it wasn’t the wind but ghosts who hadn’t yet realised they were actually dead going about their daily business, shopping for furniture, wondering why the sales assistants were ignoring them … He had mentioned this to Charlie who looked at him strangely and told him there was vacuuming to be done. Sam was always vacuuming – he felt more like a cleaner than a sales assistant.
The ding-dong customer alert continued to ding-dong and alert as the young couple stood, confused and unsure, in the entrance to the store. Charlie fixed his tie, popped a mint in his mouth and grabbed a clipboard. “Nothing in it but it makes you look important. Customers respond to that sort of thing. It is all part of my technique,” Charlie had told him on his first day.
Charlie stood up and tucked his shirt in; his ever-increasing beer-belly clearly took offence to the constraints of business wear. His sizeable belly constantly pulled his shirt away from his pants, burst belt buckles, popped buttons. He blamed manufacturing, the drycleaner, his wife but never the beer, fried food and copious amounts of cream and jam donuts that filled his morning tea ritual. Sam would push out his belly at home and warn her that he too could look like that one day. She laughed that laugh and told him she would love him no matter how fat he got and added it was only a temporary job anyway, he wouldn’t be there forever. He didn’t tell her but he had noticed his pants were getting tighter and his face a little rounder – he quietly did fifty sit ups every night when he thought she had drifted off to sleep.
Charlie took up his suit jacket from the back of his chair and slowly put it on. Sam quite enjoyed watching Charlie’s pre-sale routine. “You don’t want to appear too eager,” had been another pearl of wisdom Charlie had kindly shared on Sam’s first day. Unfortunately customers were becoming an endangered species at Crazy Charlie’s Furniture Emporium and the mantra you-don’t-want-to-appear-too-eager often meant losing customers before eye contact could be made. Sam blamed the fluorescent lights; Charlie blamed the economy, the competition, himself.
The ding-dong customer alert continued to ding-dong – happy that it had the opportunity to announce real customers rather than those pesky ghosts who persisted in shopping for furniture despite the fact they were dead. The young couple scanned the store from the comfort of the welcome mat (Charlie said customers respond to that sort of thing, it made the store welcoming because it said as much on the mat) and then whispered quietly to each other. It looked as if they were plotting their getaway.
“I’ve got to grab them. Just – just …” he flapped his arms uselessly as he trotted over to the couple, all minty-fresh, clipboarded and tucked-in.
Sam knew what the flapping arms meant: Stay away from the customers. He’d seen those flapping arms on numerous occasions, predominately in his first month of employment when he was forced to wear the condescending ‘in-training’ badge and laugh uproariously whenever a customer attempted witty repartee about his ‘name badge’.
“Where’s that from?” they’d ask with a smirk.
“Excuse me?” he would feign confusion.
“Your name,” they’d point to the badge to emphasis the hilarity of the joke, “In Training.”
They’d always put on some dreadfully insulting accent – French or German or something – Monsieur Entrainin, Herr Intraining. Then he would laugh and they would beam at their cleverness and continue to “just browse” and leave with a “see ya Mr Training” but no sofa or coffee table or five dollar throw cushion which was an absolute steal but no thanks not today … He hated customers. He had told her he was not cut out for customer service and she just laughed that laughed and told him it was only temporary.
He watched Charlie convince the couple to extract themselves from the welcome mat and take a wander around the store. Charlie would be their guide. Their friend. Their assistant. “Never call yourself a sales assistant,” he had told him, “it puts people off.”
The couple looked as dazed and confused as the moth who continued to knock himself against the light fitting. Sam wondered whether they too had simply been drawn in by the fluorescent lights.
He remembered visits to stores like this. He remembered feeling overwhelmed, wondering why they needed to buy a new sofa at all when the one he had picked up from roadside collection was quite adequate and a perfect example of lowering one’s carbon footprint and recycling and affirmative action for the environment because, after all, she was the so-called environmentalist and how could she buy into that Western wastefulness, that Capitalist greed … He sighed. Why could he only remember the fights?
Sam watched as the couple contemplated the queen-sized mattress. They looked like oversized dolls, lying shoulder to shoulder, shoes on, arms by their sides, stiff and disinterested as Charlie pointed out the miracles of the foam, the springs, the stitching. Sam watched as the woman took her partner’s hand. Sam watched as the man gently brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. Sam watched as she cupped his face. Sam watched as Charlie, in discomfort and politeness, referred to the clipboard and cleared his throat. Sam watched the tender scene unfold whilst the moth thumped against the fluorescent lights that hummed overhead. Sam watched as the woman told the man they were being watched. Sam watched as the woman pointed him out.
“What are you looking at?” the young man shouted from the mattress.
Sam remembered how she lay like that; she had looked like a tiny, porcelain doll upon the mattress, arms by her side, stiff and disinterested. He hadn’t expected it, her, to look so unnatural. On their backs, shoulder to shoulder, arms by her side he had picked up one of her delicate hands and kissed it, he had cupped her face in his hands, he had called her name, he had stroked her hair, he had called the nurse, he had said goodbye. He had known it was coming even though she had insisted, every step of the way, that it was only temporary – the hair-loss and the injections and the vomit and waiting rooms …
“Hey! Retard! What’s your problem?”
Sam didn’t know where else to go so he had come to work; his temporary job.
The young man stormed towards Sam. The young woman sneered. Charlie flapped his arms uselessly. Sam continued to watch and blink and breathe and listen to the dull thump of the hapless moth.
“He’s still going for it. What a determined little guy,” he said to no one in particular.
Unfortunately there was someone in particular who assumed Sam was speaking to him.
The man moved in close to Sam, his warm breath smelling like fast food and sugary energy drinks. Sam watched the man’s lips that had, moments earlier, kissed the young woman’s hand suddenly curl and contort into a barrage of insult. The young woman appeared at her partner’s shoulder and pulled him back. Sam watched the woman’s hand that, moments earlier, cupped the young man’s face suddenly twist into a finger sign.
The ding-dong customer alert sounded and they were gone.
Charlie stood on the welcome mat, flapping his arms uselessly in time with sound of the ding-dong. “Jesus Christ. Sam. Jesus –” Charlie put the clipboard back in the drawer, returned his suit jacket to the back of his chair, untucked his shirt and exhaled for what seemed an eternity.
“I know, I know. I’ll …” He considered going back to the house. Usually as he pulled into the Crazy Charlie’s Furniture Emporium parking lot all he could think about was turning the car around and heading back home.
The moth fluttered and faltered around the light above him.
Sam’s job usually included spraying the moths with fly spray or inducing a fatal blow with the rolled up newspaper. Not today. Charlie watched as Sam stood on the desk, reached up to the light and gently cupped the moth in his hands. He watched as Sam slowly made his way across the store with the moth cradled in the cage of his hands. He heard the ding-dong customer alert as Sam tenderly released the moth into the parking lot.
Sam stood, a lone figure on a welcome mat, and watched the moth flutter and fly until he could see it no more.
“Come and have a donut,” Charlie called.
Sam wiped his feet on the mat and returned to his temporary job.
*****
Making myself keep up with this blog with the help of The Daily Prompt Weekly Writing Challenge – Dialogue
I had to get out of the office and away from the desk. My head hurt. And my soul. Dramatic? Maybe. But I’m sure that was where most of the pain was coming from. I just wanted to get a little bit of this sunshine everyone (everyone who didn’t have to make revenue spreadsheets and rewrite copy for incompetent people who were asked to write their own copy but just couldn’t seem to do it, probably because they were enjoying the sunshine) was talking about.
I finally make it out outside.
I find the only table in the sunshine. It’s covered in bird shit. Covered. I wonder if the bird had some kind intolerance thing. Do birds get IBS? That would be terrifying. Anyway, the table delightfully decorated with bird poo is the only table in the sunshine and I have forgotten my cardigan. So I ignore the white and brown flakes and mounds of god-knows-what-these-birds-have-been-eating and sit down to write.
The smokers are out in force. The work-place hierarchy still firmly intact as the power-suits of the heads / managers of this and that smoke in prime position on the manicured lawn whilst the cheap-suits of the security guards smoke in the dirt and wood-chips and litter that fills the sad flower-beds.
Once the power-suits crush their cigarettes into the lawn and rush off for some important meeting with some important client, the security guards take their places.
The short security guard has issues with his lighter and speaks in series of questions; “Oh, really?” “Fair enough?” “Two extra hours today makes it a long shift?” “I bloody hate Vodafone?” “I need a new lighter?”
I wonder if he ever got the answers he wants. His fellow security guard seems unlikely to argue with him. He looks like a very unassuming man and wears square glasses. I wonder what made him choose
a) to be a security guard, and
b) square glasses
I’m not brave enough to ask him. Besides, his colleague has more than enough questions for him.
“I’m loving this sunshine?”
Their voices and cigarette smoke drift over me.
Sometimes I wish I was a smoker. Without the cancer and wrinkles and yellow teeth and bad skin and addiction and harm to unborn babies and gangrene and all that stuff … But … Still … There is still something immaturely romantic and ridiculously ‘cool’ about the cigarette. Like Leonardo DiCaprio playing Romeo in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. Like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Like Rita Hayward or Lana Turner or Ava Gardner or …. OK, who am I kidding here? Maybe it is because it gives you something to do with your hands. Or an excuse to have a bit of breather, outside on your own for a moment, during a full-on dinner-party or family gathering or something without looking totally rude. A breather? With a cigarette? Who am I fooling? It smells disgusting. I know it. I want no part in it. I am that person who gives you a filthy look as I rush past you on the street to avoid the killer passive smoke of your disgusting habit. I am that person who coughs loudly when you light up too close to me in the beer garden. I am that person who feels like they deserve some sort of medal, or at that the very least an impromptu performance by a mariachi band, when they tell the doctor – “No, I don’t smoke” … But still. Some days …
Maybe it is because I feel like an idiot sitting at a table covered in bird excrement writing away whilst surrounded by smokers. Maybe I am feeling a bit of peer-pressure.
The sun moves and suddenly I am sitting at a table covered in the faecal matter from a flock of birds but minus the appeal of sunshine … or a cardigan. I try to ignore all of those facts – the lack of sunshine, the lack of a cardigan, the abundance of bird poop – and focus on the positives: I am outside, I am away from the desk, I don’t smoke, I am not a security guard.
The sunshine gets locked behind the clouds and the wind picks up. A dry and miserable looking leaf snuggles up to my foot. I try to shake it off but it doesn’t want to leave me – clinging to my boot like the sooky two-year old who cannot be without its mother and , before they know it (where does the time go), he is twenty-five years old and still living at home and playing on his X-Box whilst his mother still does his cooking and washing and ironing and even though she hints loudly that he should find a place of his own, they all know he won’t be going anywhere because he’s got it too good. Like this leaf. But enough is enough. It is time for it to stop being so clingy and find its own way in the world. I get tough.
The security guards notice.
I wonder if they are out here to protect the leaves.
Or find new recruits for the security guard team.
I was pretty tough.
Or maybe I was too tough and now I am a ‘person of interest’.
I make sure they can see my lanyard and staff pass thing – just so they know I am on their side, nothing to worry about here. Just a leaf. Just a leaf.
Another three security guards join Shorty and Square-glasses. They are all smoking. I wonder
a) what is the collective noun for security guards?
b) do all security guards smoke?
c) have I done something wrong?
Shorty’s questions are getting louder – I think he is showing off for the other, taller security guards. He stands like a politician and gestures a lot.
The smoke continues to drift over me but the sunshine never does come back. I wish for my cardigan and a clean table but neither come – the end of my mini-break does though. I remember in grade 1 a kid asking the teacher why five-minutes could feel so long when we were waiting for home-time but feel so short when we were doing something fun. Like French Cricket. Our class loved French Cricket. She said it was exactly the same amount of time. I don’t think she understood the question.
And so I head back to the world of spread-sheets and data-bases and invoices and wait for home-time …
The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.
Pablo Picasso
I knew this would happen.
I was meant to be working a decent, part-time (i.e. maximum three-day-a-week) job which would give me time to focus upon writing, writing, writing for the other two days plus weekends when I could (i.e. so I don’t become a friendless hermit or cat-lady, minus the cats but with the isolated-craziness thing going on – I’m not allowed pets in my apartment but that’s another story, another blog, another day) …
This is not quite happening.
My three days often magically turned into five. Just like that!
BAM!
Now I am signed up for four days a week. Sometimes five. Then I can negotiate a day-in-lieu. So maybe some weeks I can work three. But the usual will be four. Unless there is a show on or an important meeting. Then it is definitely five. But I’m only paid for four. But a day off can be negotiated so long as it isn’t for a day off when there is a show on or an important meeting. But most days. They’re flexible. To a point.
Confused? Me too.
But …
I thought I would manage.
One of my colleagues told me it wouldn’t work – “It’s a creative process,” he said. “You need time.”
Yes. That would be nice but I’m not Jane frickin Austen (apologies to Ms Austen – I know you didn’t have a middle name and probably would not appreciate being given that one in particular) – I don’t have the luxury of time or a handsome trust account.
I have to Pay Rent / Buy food / Live (not necessarily in that order).
So, whilst I have been outwardly dismissing my colleague’s comments as completely and utterly wrong, inwardly I am thinking he might be right. There is a lot of pressure to get writing done when you only have limited time in which to do it: pressure trumps creativity.
But …
Maybe the reverse is true also; you make more of your time when you have less of it.
Or, in my case, you just freak out at the pressure of getting something done today and the pressure manifests into self-doubt and anxiety and youtube and Not Getting Anything Done.
So, here is my “list of ways to counteract feelings of creative stagnation when faced with a regular job that sucks all your time and energy” [working title]
(Riveting stuff there, I know … But one day it could be gold, you never know what I have to pick up from the store – stay tuned!)
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
Aristotle
In my current day-job I work with really lovely people who always thank me for my work or say how great my Excel spreadsheets are or how happy they are with my contribution to the team or present me with two cinema tickets as a reward for all my efforts (yes, this actually happened. I saw Gatsby. That’s another story). Our department is not always this disneyfied-wonderland of positivity and appreciation, however I have never been nor felt criticized for my work.
It’s weird.
Because the work that I do that doesn’t-pay-the-bills-as-frequently-as-this-current-admin-job, as an actor and writer, is full of criticism. In fact, criticism and the Arts really go hand-in-hand; it’s part of the deal. Mum would always tell me I would need to “grow a thicker skin” if I wanted to be an actor … That sounded particularly terrifying and awful, especially to the fifteen year-old me who was sobbing into her pillow because she didn’t get the part in some god-awful amateur theatre production of Les liaisons dangereuses.
Actors, writers, theatre-makers, artists, designers, film-makers, creatives … We are all subject to criticism in our chosen fields. As an actor, simply not getting the gig can be taken as a criticism; that director thought she was better / prettier / thinner / more talented than me …
To be honest, I am confident there are plenty of careers out there that must deal with fierce criticism everyday but there is something different about the criticism you receive for your creative work. Maybe because a little bit (or sometimes a lot) of yourself goes into creative work. Maybe because it is so exposing. Maybe because inside most people there is that creative urge, that sense that they too could have been doing something creative if only they’d had the break / money / parental support / reality television programs like The Voice, so that makes them some sort of expert who can dish-out criticism. Maybe because there really aren’t any “experts”. Maybe because the arts are so damn subjective (if you’re a crap doctor, you’re a crap doctor – there’s no question about it. Tobey Maguire, on the other hand, divides audiences).
There is also something different about the very public way in which that criticism is often given – reviews, particularly on the internet, are there for the world to see if they ever wanted to.
The growing of a thicker skin has been a very, very long process for me.
I once took part in a playwriting course – just a little bi-monthly meeting of wannabe playwrights, facilitated by one actual playwright. You would read your work aloud and get feedback. It was always a good day but never all that challenging. I was the youngest there and the only participant not attempting to write some sort of drawing-room drama. Needless to say the play I was working on, Dropped, was a little different from what the others found aesthetically pleasing.
After reading a section of my play (a section in which there is a bit of repetitive swearing but all in the appropriate context … of course) one of my fellow class-mates got quite irate:
“Why?” she asked. “Why?” I didn’t know what she was really asking me here. “Why?” she repeated. “Why what?” I needed more information. “Why?” I just looked at her. After a pause she continued, “I just don’t know why … I don’t understand. Why? Why these words? Why am I hearing this? Why?”I didn’t have an answer for her.
That was criticism.
That was the first time the class had really challenged me.
And that was the moment I realised; as much as I hated it I also needed it – criticism.
It made me stop and think about what I was doing and why I was doing it. It also made me want to punch her in the face, but once I worked through that (no punches were thrown) I could actually start to look at my work objectively … Well, as objectively as you can.
Of course I won’t always like it, or agree with it, but I think I realised in that moment that it is a necessity for creative practice. Not a spiteful review or a mean-spirited comment but criticism that makes you think, question and challenge your work. Unfortunately there isn’t much of that around …
Learning to listen to criticism in whichever form it takes, to pick out the useful bits and brush off the crap, is difficult but you get to practice it a lot when you work in the arts.
It’s the only way I can keep turning up to castings. And not get the role.
It’s the only way I can keep writing. And not get the grant / commission / award.
In order to simply survive this crazy “industry” it is so very important separate the work from the person – to not look at a bad review or the fact you didn’t get a role as a personal attack … Keep it separate. Take from it what you can and make a choice: act on it or let it go. Otherwise, well, we would all go a little madder than we already are. Otherwise we would all just give up.
That woman with her incessant “whys” really did help me a hell of a lot.
(And Dropped is going to be performed soon complete with the aforementioned section in which there is a bit of repetitive swearing but all in the appropriate context … of course)
Sirens.
Avril Lavigne covering The Beatles. A small child screaming for his mother.
The cat. Scratching at the door.
Sirens. Sirens.
The wind.
An avocado falls out of my head and onto the page. It splits in two.
Neat.
Perfect.
I don’t even like avocado. I like how they look in the fruit bowl. I consider decorative, plastic avocado.
The people below come home. Voices. Humming softly. Chatting. Or fighting. They fight a lot. In the mornings there are post-it notes of desperate, passionate love on their front door. In the evenings torn post-it notes of despair litter the parking lot. Sad confetti.
The possums fight. Or have sex. Or both. I wonder if they take their cues from the people who live below.
The people above move furniture around all night. They are insomniacs. They are dancers. They must clear room to practice their salsa, their foxtrot, their hip-hop routine at seventeen past two in the morning. It isn’t their fault they cannot sleep. They have to do something.
Sirens. Sirens.
A truck on the highway. Or is it a freeway? The pipes hum. Toilets flush. Lights switch on. Off. On. Off. Stilettos strike the footpath. Something falls. Or someone. A match is lit. A car broken into. Maybe. A twenty-one-past-two-in-the-morning snack is made. I was very comfortable in bed. I had found that perfect position for sleep. The music continues. The possums continue. I feel an ulcer on the tip of my tongue. In a few hours the man with the leaf-blower will start leaf-blowing. He always starts at six. On a Tuesday. He is very reliable.
The kitchen table is full of mail but none of it is mine.
Mark James Lilley. He used to live here. I have his mail.
Maria Giovangulous. She used to live here. I have her mail.
Kevin Chan. He used to live here. I have his mail.
I wonder if they all lived together. I wonder if there was some kind of house-share-love-triangle which didn’t end well and thus led to me living in Mark, Maria and Kevin’s old place.
The fridge is humming.
The kitchen window is open. Possums come into the kitchen and play at being human. Worry about what to cook for dinner. Drink too much. Ignore the ever-growing stack of dirty dishes.
The fruit bowl is empty. That worries me. I need more fruit. Tomorrow. Apples.
Tomorrow.
katy warner 